


Walk, Don't Run

by sarahenany



Category: The World's End (2013)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:56:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the film, Gary gets carried home on his shield. Reconciliation ensues. Sorta pre-slash. Or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk, Don't Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jonesandashes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesandashes/gifts).



Andy can't believe it still, sometimes.

He looks out over the patch of cabbages that has become their plot. Watches as Gary limps through it, plucking out weeds.

Gary's never going to be the same, but Andy can live with that.

He still remembers the night Gary was carried in on his shield, all but literally. Was it a year after they settled down? Two? Time moves slower, seems to slip away at a more leisurely pace when there's nothing electronic to mark the passing of the days. Now there are seasons – winter gives way to spring to summer to autumn to winter once again. It must be, about three summers ago now, but the sight's burned into Andy's mind. Replays in his nightmares, on occasion.

* * *

"Knightley?"

Andy's head jerked up off his pillow. Pretty nice pillow, too, salvaged from one of the few John Lewises' that hadn't been burned out by the loss of all the electronics. Turned out Newton Haven was so disastrously affected because it had been a penetration point (and didn't _that_ sound dirty). London, while suffering the effects of the electromagnetic pulse same as everywhere else, setting fire to virtually every shop and department store, had at least not exploded, and heavy rains had blessedly put out the fires and helped with the ones that still randomly started. At last, a reason to be grateful for the miserable weather of the British Isles.

"What?" He scrabbled for the weapon he always kept beside his pillow. A club wasn't much use, if it was a gang or something, but it made him feel better to be armed.

"Someone 'ere." The terse voice of Crispin, one of the younger chaps standing guard – back then the camp had really been insecure, and marauding gangs had taken advantage of the chaos to loot what they could – came curtly through the thin walls of the tent he'd set up for the duration. "Asking for you."

"In the middle of the bloody night," Andy muttered half-heartedly as he gave himself up to the chill night, casting off the lovely warmth of his bed like a forgotten blanket. Probably some brawl that had broken out – he was the designated judge this week, and…

Andy stopped dead. Gary King was laid out on a makeshift stretcher made out of an old door, which was just being put down by a young man and woman Andy didn't know. His leg was twisted sideways. His face was swollen, blood flowing from gashes in his head and chest.

* * *

 

"Oi! Gary!" Andy yells. The sun's setting, and someone's made soup. "Give it a rest and come over here!"

He has to watch over Gary, now, make sure he doesn't overwork himself. Dr. Simmons, bless him – running a GP tent in Swindebourne now – did a bang-up job on the severed tendon in his thigh, but there's only so much you can do without CAT scans and MRI's and the hundred and one tools of modern medicine. Andy sees how it hurts Gary sometimes when it's chilly, has to tell him to come closer to the fire, tuck an extra blanket round his legs. One bad habit that has died hard is that Gary King would have to be dying before he admitted to feeling pain.

"Coming! Just got this row to finish!"

The tall figure straightens up from his gardening. The sun's red and gold behind him, silhouetting the ragged, tattered edge of his old trench-coat – more of a jacket now, really. They had to cut the bottom off after that night, it was all ruined, and now the fabric stops around Gary's hipbones. Andy thinks it's a good look for him. Except that Gary's hipbones are too prominent still, his frame too lanky. But that'll be fixed. He's filling out a little more with every meal, every good night's sleep, looking healthier every day.

Every day he stays.

"No," Andy says firmly, "now. Soup'll get cold and you know how you hate cold soup."

"All right, Andy, don't get your knickers in a twist." Flashes of sunlight blind Andy here and there, streaming out from behind where Gary's shadow had blocked them, as Gary lays down the spade he's been using and stands up straight and stretches. Andy has to shade his eyes with his hands as the sunbeams scatter, Gary's body blocking different areas of the setting sun as he raises his arms over his head, hands clasped, and spreads his linked arms this way and that, chest expanding, groaning with pleasure. Can't blame him there; the air smells lovely, nice and fresh. One of the perks of the Dark Ages.

Andy waits patiently as Gary limps across the neat rows of vegetables to join him, and claps him on the shoulder as they go towards the fire to eat.

* * *

 

"Fuck." Andy distractedly listened to Mark Simmons swear as the doctor stripped Gary's bleeding clothes off, sluiced the blood away to reveal cuts and more cuts. Deep. Deeper than they should be. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Truth be told, Andy was only half listening. He was kneeling by the makeshift table, cupping Gary's head in the back of his hand, listening desperately for a whisper of breath. Gary's still profile was peaceful, frightening. The manic, savage inertia that fueled the man's perpetual motion was gone—it was like holding a corpse. Andy's stomach twisted with cold, and he stared hard at Gary's chest, willing him to be still breathing. "What's the—how bad is it?" he snapped.

Agonizing, eternal seconds passed before Gary's chest rose and fell, blood bubbling up from the deep gash a few inches below his collarbone. Andy could see glistening flesh, bisected beneath the skin. "Fuck!" he screamed, his calm gone. He'd been better at keeping calm, everyone had commented on it. Made him director of the neighbourhood watch and everything. "Talk to me. How fucking bad is it, Mark?"

"I'll tell you when I've got a sodding clue," the doctor muttered, working somewhere around Gary's knee. "God, God, what's he been playing at—Friend of yours?"

The exhalation left Andy in a rush, left him hollow as he stared at Gary's still face. "Yeah," he murmured. He drew in a shaky breath, leaned in closer to Gary's stark profile, bruised and swollen. "Yeah, he is."

* * *

 

They stand in line for the soup, a rich, warm stew brewed by a couple of volunteers. They don't always eat outside like this, but when there's a long stretch of work to reclaim a patch of land or rebuild something, it's easier to create working groups like this than trek back and forth to their homes and families every day. Some of the old geezers have helped a lot, the ones with experience of World War II. Always on about how this is like London during the Blitz and how to do things 'for the duration'.

Andy waves Gary ahead of him as their turn comes. "After you."

There are days, like this one, when he almost likes the 'duration' better than what he had before.

* * *

 

"What the hell happened?" Andy asked the two who'd brought Gary in, a boy and girl who looked West Indian. Not that geography mattered now, really, anymore.

"He asked us to bring him here," the girl told him. "He said to ask for Andrew Knightley."

And then they'd spun him a yarn – ridiculous, enthralling, terrifying and shocking by turns. Gary King, turned teetotaler? Leader of a gang of blanks – fighting for blanks' rights by going into bars and starting brawls? And then, a tale of a fight almost to the death in a skinhead human supremacist bar, Gary's blank friends destroyed utterly, Gary knifed and beaten almost to death.

Andy shook his head. What happened to the Gary who'd run away? What had happened to the Gary he knew? What had happened along the way?

He looked down at Gary's still face, Gary's head still warm in his cupped hand.

What had _happened?_

* * *

 

The clearing where they sit for dinner is perfect in the gentle late summer air. Soon enough it'll be snow and ice and they'll have to retreat into the gutted buildings, but for now it's pleasant. Andy sits shoulder-to-shoulder with Gary on the grass, backs propped up against a gigantic stone, and they munch contentedly together. Tonight it's a tomato and mystery meat soup so thick it's almost a stew, hot and steaming and delicious, and crusty bread. Gary had once asked where the cook got the meat for the stew, and Andy had said, "Don't ask."

"Windows'll need to be boarded up soon," Gary says through a mouthful of bread-and-stew. "Best to do it now before the cold snap."

"The crew's got rotation tomorrow. Just hold your flaming horses, all right?" Andy responds without heat.

Gary used to be a perpetual motion machine, and he still is, in some ways, though he's mellowed out considerably: almost dying and then going through a year of physical therapy to be able to even walk unassisted will do that to you. But Andy still needs to hold him back for hear he'll work himself into an early grave.

He shudders. Never again.

* * *

 

It was one long, fevered night at the beginning, when they weren't yet sure Gary would survive. The infection in his wounds was raging and the fires on the horizon were high. "I wasn't meant to survive that night," Gary said through swollen, bandaged lips, panting with fever and pain.

"Mmm." Andy was busy mopping Gary's burning brow and trying to work out from the trees and blasted buildings what, exactly, was burning. Could be the Dixon's, things in there were always catching fire. Or the chemical labs further north.

"No, really."

"What are you on about?" Andy said impatiently. _"What_ night?" They were running out of clean bandages and Gary's fever wasn't breaking, and he wouldn't lose him before he found out what the fuck was going on and he'd had _enough_ of losing Gary, and—

"That night. The World's End," Gary said, though his words were just a whisper of breath that made it sound something like 'thana, wuhsun.' "I was… It was supposed to be… The last thing."

Andy's hands stilled as the penny dropped. He smoothed the cloth over Gary's face and returned his hands to his sides with careful, controlled movements. "What," he said coldly, "is that supposed to mean?"

Gary must have been really feverish, because he talked on. "It was… last hurrah, Andy. Get it done. Get to the world's end. Go out in a blaze of glory."

"Out," Andy articulated precisely, fighting the urge to snap the stupid bastard's neck, _"where?"_

Gary's hand twitched, like he'd have waved an expansive arm if he'd had the strength. His tattered sleeves fell back, revealing his still-angry scars on his wrists. Deep, deeper than you'd think any man could cut himself. "Out."

"I see." Andy couldn't help the rage that had coiled tightly in his voice, sick man or no sick man. "So you called us all in to be pallbearers at your own fucking funeral, is that it? We are gathered here today? When your little quest was all done, you were going to – to try it again?"

"Not _try,"_ Gary said. Before Andy could come up with anything more than a shocked stare, he heard the words, so faint they were a breath: "I'm so _tired,_ Andy _."_

"Wouldn't be so tired if you gave it a bloody rest."

"I have." Gary sounded so plaintive, so unlike himself, that Andy looked at him. "I'm trying."

"You are. Very bloody trying."

Gary started to sob. Andy could have dismissed it as self-pity, as a hundred other things, but instead he awkwardly wiped the tears off Gary's torn cheek with the pad of his thumb. Gary shook with the force of his sobs, so hard he winced. "Settle down, will you," Andy said without heat. "It's all right." He settled an arm gently around Gary, careful to avoid the gaping wound in his chest. "'S all right."

"I'm sorry," Gary choked. "I am, I've ruined everything."

Andy couldn't help the way his heart twisted as Gary turned his head and burrowed his cheek into Andy's sleeve. "Your stubborn ego saved the world," he said, refreshing the cloth. Gary was fucking burning up, damn it. "That's all right to be getting along with."

Gary squeezed his eyes shut, facial muscles tensing with the effort to hold back his sobs. Andy laid a hand against his cheek and held it there. "We'll talk about it later. Just get well."

* * *

 

"Got an application from the Double-Blanks," Gary says with his mouth full, leaning comfortably against Andy's shoulder. "They want to put on another concert in the square out behind where the Asda used to be."

"Oh, nice. When?"

"Probably in the next couple of weeks. Have to check. They want to do it while it's still warm outside."

"Good idea." Andy just enjoys his soup for a minute, watching the glow of the sunset. "You going to be on the committee?"

"Might as well. Everyone else's busy with fixing the school up before the next cold wave hits." Gary swallows, takes another spoonful of hot soup. "They'll need a bit of a shell to amplify the sound."

"Just don't work your leg too hard. I know you: get a couple of pretty birds to smile at you, you get to thinking you're invincible and then you'll fall on your face like you did last time and I'll end up having to tie you to the bed for a week."

"If I didn't know you better I'd say you were kinky."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, lad," Andy mutters mysteriously.

Gary snorts with laughter and buries his face in his bowl.

* * *

 

Andy had thought Gary was asleep – he was on enough painkillers to drop a horse – but sitting up with Gary, listening to his hitching breath, Andy realized that the man's swollen eyes were open, staring straight up, as though seeking answers from above.

"You all right, Gary? Need anything?"

"I can't…"Gary stopped to draw a rattling breath, and Andy heard phlegm hitch somewhere deep in his chest. That sound, coming from the invincible Gary King, was somehow frightening in a way the end of the world hadn't been. He reached out, slipped a hand beneath Gary's back, hitched him up into a more comfortable position. The man drew an easier breath, and proclaimed weakly, "Can't change anything. Nothing's fucking good enough."

Andy didn't mean to snap. He must have been more tired than he thought. "Oh, give it a bloody rest. You're not the fucking king anymore. Why is it so fucking hard to accept that you're fucking human like the rest of us?"

"Except for the blanks," Gary retorted flatly, as though the life had been drained out of him. "Killed 'em. All of them. Just me left. Didn't – wouldn't kill me when they found my blood was red."

Andy was suddenly struck with a suspicion that was almost a certainty. "Did you ask them to kill you? The skinheads? You ask them to?"

"No."

The answer was so decisive that it brought Andy up short. "You didn't?"

"No."

_"No?"_

"No." Gary turned his head so his narrowed eyes met Andy's, brown darkened to black, glinting with the reflected blaze of the firelight. "Wanted to. But I didn't. I promised."

"Promised? You've never kept a promise in your life." Gary flinched. "Sorry. but it's just… so unlike you."

"Haven't you noticed?" Gary said. "I'm trying to be different. To change. To… grow up."

Andy shook his head. "Got a funny way of doing it."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

* * *

 

They've pitched a tent near a spreading oak tree, out of the wind, even though the weather is still warm. Andy can't help being protective of Gary, finding him a mattress to cushion his sore bones, salvaging an extra blanket because he knows how the cold makes his scars ache. Gary is so grateful it almost scares Andy, looking at him shyly as though he can't believe he merits such care. They chat about commonplaces and gossip and joke and, although the world is ending, it's the happiest Andy's ever been.

Maybe the world isn't ending. Maybe it's just beginning.

* * *

 

"No, really, Gary, I want to know. Why the flippin' hell would you do something like that, anyway?" Andy found himself saying one night, gazing at the deep, scabbed-over slash across Gary's chest. Out of danger, the doctor had said, but still very weak. "Robin Hood, some sort of martyr fucking complex…"

"…better."

"What d'you mean, better?"

Gary took a hitching breath. "Real friends, real happiness…" he paused to breathe, "those are the things worth fighting for. You said that, didn't you?"

Andy stilled.

"Yeah," Gary said. "Wanted to do that. Fight. Be a person you'd be proud of."

Andy couldn't speak. Finally, through the lump in his throat, he said, "You mean to try and convince me you did all this – for me? To prove yourself to me somehow?"

"Don't mean to convince you. Just wanted to… be someone you'd… I dunno." He took a shuddering breath. It grated on some phlegm in his throat. "Be a fighter. Not run away all the time. Wanted to stay away till you could see it, too. Till I was good enough." Another cough that broke into a spasm, and Andy caught Gary's flailing hand and hung on tight until the attack subsided. "Couldn't help myself when I thought I was going to kick the bucket, though. Wanted to see you one last time."

Gary had used emotional blackmail so often, so often, wrapped Andy round his little finger, got him to do anything he wanted to do, that even with the ring of truth in his voice… "It's hard to believe that."

"'S all right. I know I've been a bastard."

For a long time Andy couldn't find anything to say. At last he settled on, "Didn't mean you had to kill yourself, you bloody great daft sod."

"But you said… walk into a bar and order water. Takes balls. You said that, didn't you?"

Andy nodded, beyond speech.

"Yeah. And you an' me were always saying about people being stupid, afraid of what they didn't understand, of different people… I thought protecting the blanks would be a way of standing up for what you believed in."

"What I… Gary, fuck it all." When he could speak again, Andy croaked, "Why?"

"Because…" A wave of pain hit, and Gary's grip on Andy's hand tightened. Andy curled his other hand around Gary's, held on tight until it subsided. "I… You're –Andy, I never meant to run out on you. Never."

"It's all right," said Andy, although it wasn't.

"No, it isn't. You were hurt, and I…"

"Over. Water under the bridge."

"No," Gary choked. "Nothing's been right since. I… You never know how one stupid trick's going to ruin your whole fucking life."

Something uneasy coiled in Andy's gut. "What do you mean?"

"I…" Gary swallowed. "Wanted to see how  much you loved me. That's all."

"Go on."

"I… I wanted… It was stupid. To feel like you… you'd take care of me." He turned his head to the side. "I really was on something that night, can't remember what the fuck it was, but it wasn't a real overdose. Not… I wasn't – it wasn't on purpose, didn't want to. I started out like that, and then when I felt better, I just… It was so… It was sweet, how worried you were. It felt… Just seeing you looking at me like that, begging me to hold on, to not die… It was the best I've ever felt. That you'd care if I croaked."

"Fuck you, you bastard," Andy said gently, "of course I'd care."

"Yeah, well," Gary matched his gentle tone, "I liked hearing it. Selfish sod, that's me." He sighed. "So when I felt better, I just… kept on doing it."

Andy nodded.

"When the car crashed… You blacked out for a bit. Dunno if you remember that."

 "All I remember is—" Andy frowned. "The car flipped, and then…"

Gary smiled, mirthlessly.  "I came to in the back seat. You were out. Blood all over your face. And I…" He drew in a shuddering breath, and his face tightened in a way Andy had never seen before. "I thought—I felt for a pulse, Andy. I felt for a pulse and…"

"A pulse can be hard to find in fat people," Andy said clinically.

"Yeah, and it didn't help I was stoned out of my mind but—I thought… No pulse, no breathing and—"

"Bloody hell." Andy looked hard at the silent tears streaming from the corners of Gary's eyes. "You thought I'd _died."_

Gary nodded tightly, looking more stricken than he'd ever seen him before. "I thought you – I held – I still remember holding you and bawling like a fucking baby. There was nothing I wouldn't have done to get you back. There st—" He cut himself off sharply.

"What?"

"No, I—"

"What?"

"Not trying to—"

"Just say it!"

"There still isn't."

In the silence that followed, Gary's voice fell, very still. "I thought I'd killed you. Got you killed. Same thing, really, innit?" He smiled mirthlessly. "Killed my best friend, who loved me. I knew you loved me. Fuck, I loved you more than anything. It's not fucking brave, but I ran. For hours and bloody hours. No idea where I ended up. Took something."

"What kind of something?"

"The kind of something a bloke who's killed his best friend takes, what the hell d'you think? I just wanted to…" Gary sighed, then at Andy's threatening stare, blurted, "To join you."

A long, long beat of silence passed. Andy searched in his heart for the old pain, found it had melted away, given way to a new one, softer and altogether more wistful. "We're not stupid emo teenagers anymore, Gary, you know," he said softly.

"I know. Bugger, I know that."

 "I still do, you know." Andy rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. "Love you." He inhaled and exhaled again. "Never have been that angry with you if I didn't, you stupid sod."

Gary gripped Andy's hand tightly as tears wet the lashes of his squeezed-shut eyes. "It isn't any bloody use, Andy. I've tried so hard to make—" Gary coughed. "—make amends. I've gone sober. Tried to be—to become a better man. Someone you'd be proud of."

"Took the _world_ going out in a blaze of glory for you to realize _you_ weren't going to." Andy smiled, but couldn't quite laugh, not quite yet.

"I know I ran out on you," Gary said. "I know you can't forgive me."

"No—" Andy watched Gary's face fall. "No, I mean I _can!_ Just for once in your life listen to me. There was only one thing I couldn't get over and that was—What I never forgave you for was not getting better, and…"

"Not growing up."

"Yeah. That too. But that was just part of it. I wanted you to get _better,_ Gary."

There was a pause. "Am I now? Better?"

The naked pleading in Gary's face was utterly different from the beseeching, fake-Gary-King vulnerability Andy had always seen. "Yeah. Yeah, you are."

"So what do I do now? I want to… I want us to be—not like we were, but—"

"Shut it," Andy said fondly, squeezing Gary's hand. "We will. I'll still love you, you daft sod. Never really stopped. But if you want me to be proud of you, you have to do one thing."

The fear in Gary's eyes was a little heartbreaking, but the determination in them was heartening. "All right." He stuck his chin out as though bracing for a blow.

"Stay with us. Don't run off again."

Gary blinked. "What?"

"That's my condition."

There was a pause, as though Gary was trying to find the trick. Finally he said, "That's all?"

"Yes, Gary. That's all I ask. Don't run."

A wry, sad smile split Gary's bruised face. "Might never be able to run again, with this leg," he said. "It's all right, I know, I heard Mark. Be lucky to even walk."

Andy patted Gary's hand. "Walking's a good start."

 

* * *

 

They head for the tent after a nice cuppa. Not up to the standard of Sam's tea, but she and Steven will be coming down tomorrow to visit the working party and lend a hand. It'll be nice to see them, and maybe they'll bring some of their famous biscuits. Andy always thinks fondly of them all. When more things are repaired it'll be easier to get around. They say they'll get the older-fashioned cars operating any day now.

He holds the flap for Gary to get inside, and they change into warm tracksuits and jerseys in the cramped confines of the tent. Andy helps Gary lie down on the soft mattress – he still has trouble getting up and sitting down – and carefully tucks the covers around him. He turns to get into his sleeping bag.

"Wait," says Gary.

"Hm?" Andy really, really can't wait to get horizontal. "What?"

Gary reaches an arm outside the blankets. "Need a hug."

Andy stares for a moment. Then he blows out the candle, lifts the edge of Gary's blankets and climbs in beside him.

"One way to make sure you won't run," Andy mutters as he curls himself around Gary, feels Gary snuggle warmly into him. He fidgets till they're both comfy, then wraps his arm round Gary, tight.

"Not run," Gary murmurs contentedly. "Just walk."


End file.
